In Essence of Fate
by ObsidionDragonProject
Summary: Before Dawn can get her first Pokemon, she accidentally gets into some trouble with Team Rocket, stranding her far from home. Now she must find her back with the help of the man who saved her life. WARNING: Strong language
1. Trouble with Impatience

Dawn awoke to the sound of a preset alarm going off. She nearly pressed the snooze button, but stopped when she noticed the date. Today was the day that she would be allowed to get her first Pokémon, having just turned ten. She leapt out of bed, getting dressed as quick as possible, and slid down the stairs. Her mother was already up, and had a lavish breakfast set out on the table. She smiled to her mother and swallowed the entire breakfast as fast as she could. "Slow down," her mother chided with a grin, "if you choke, you'll never get a Pokémon." Dawn laughed through a mouthful of pancake and followed her mother's advice. When they had finished the meal, Dawn leapt up, and made for the doorway, positively ecstatic. "Where are you going?" her mother asked innocently. Dawn's head flipped around, and incredulous looked on her face at her mother's lack of sense. "I'm going to Sangem to see professor Rowan." "Not yet." Dawn just stared at her mother, pure disbelief painting her face. "Why not?" "I'm going with you today, so we aren't leaving until I'm finished cleaning up breakfast." Dawn's face went beet red. "But Mom, I know the way to Sangem!" "I know that." "I'm already ten!" "Yes, as a matter of fact, you are." Dawn was getting very frustrated by her mother's lack of understanding. "It would be embarrassing!" Her mom turned to her, a very knowing look on her face. "I'm not going to be holding your hand while you're picking out your Pokémon; I just need to do some shopping today." Dawn was taken aback. "I, uh, o.k." Her mother laughed. "Now, I won't get anything done if you keep getting impatient, so go outside and play. And don't go to Sangem without me, or there will be trouble for you. Dawn nodded her understanding and sped out of the door.

Dawn closed the door behind her, and skipped to her favorite spot to play, the woods outside of her house. She walked calmly, wondering which Pokémon she would choose. Truth, be told, she didn't really know which ones professor Rowan had. Her daydream of Pokémon and great exploits was interrupted by the sound of hushed voices ahead of her. She was naturally a curious person, so she tiptoed toward the voices. She was soon overlooking a small drop-off, underneath which, four strangely dressed people were gathered. She strained her ears to hear what they were saying. "Enough Vitoria, we have our orders, we no longer get a choice," came the deep voice with a very thick accent. "I know that, Makarov," this voice was higher pitched, and it seemed to cradle each word before releasing it, "It just seems that we are always stuck with the dirty work." "That doesn't matter," the man called Makarov replied, turning so that his back was to Dawn, revealing a red R painted on his shirt. Dawn nearly gasped. These people were allied with the infamous Team Rocket, a band of outlaws that stole Pokémon from trainers and sold them on the black market. Dawn started to crawl backwards, but stopped when Makarov started talking again.

"Vitoria? Where is Rejik?" "Right here boss." Dawn jumped as a man spoke directly behind her. She tried to escape, but the man was too fast, and he caught her arm and dragged her to the group. She struggled, but all that that earned her was an angry rap on her head. Tears started to form in her eyes. "It seems that we have a little spy in our midst, Makarov," Rejik explained as he lifted Dawn into a standing position. "Ah, good work Rejik," Makarov said as he started to examine Dawn's face. Makarov was a rather handsome man. His black hair was cropped short, and his face was rugged like a western movie star's.

"This isn't a place to play, little miss," he began, "Do your parents know that you're here?" It was an innocent enough question, but Dawn was rather scared for her life at the moment, so she didn't answer. Makarov chuckled. He seemed to enjoy her torment. "It isn't wise to travel anywhere alone without Pokémon miss," he said in his low baritone of a voice, "surely you were smart enough to bring one with you, right?" "N-no." "Don't joke with me." When she insisted that she didn't have any, he started to get very angry. His face began to turn red, but he took a breath and calmed himself. "O.k. then, let's assume that you were stupid enough not to bring a Pokémon with you," he said, his voice shaking, "Do tell me why you were eavesdropping on my associates and I?" "I-I wasn't, sir." "Don't lie to me. Who are you helping?"

"I'm not helping anyone; I was just playing, honest!" Makarov's patience was waning quickly, and Dawn could see it in his face. "Rejik, see if you can make her talk." Rejik grinned and began to drag her away. Dawn realized that this was probably the only chance that she would get, so she kicked him in the fork of his legs. Rejik doubled over in pain, releasing her. She didn't wait long enough to see how anyone would react to what she had just done, but began running immediately. She didn't watch where she was going, her only thought being escape. After a few seconds, she could hear them following her. She fled as quickly as she could, but they were adults, and she only a child. She knew that they would catch her eventually, and she had no clue where she was going. She was tackled after only a couple of minutes of running at full speed. She fought her attacker with everything that she had. With a well-placed kick, she was free again, and she was running again. She twisted her way through the forest, trying to throw them off her trail. Finally she reached a ravine, and she stopped to catch her breath. Her break was prematurely ended by the crashing of one of her pursuers running out of the forest towards her. She didn't look to see who it was, but simply slid into the ravine.

She looked back to see that her follower was sliding down the ravine as well. Her attention was immediately diverted as a loose rock cut into her left leg. Pain blasted through her. She rolled out of the ravine, clutching her leg. She looked up to see that she had landed near a road. As she seemed to have lost her attacker, she limped toward the road, as roads normally meant that a city was close by, and a city meant a hospital. Just before she reached the road, she was tackled again. She tried to struggle, but her leg throbbed too much. "Now I've got you, you little bitch." She looked up into the face of her assailer.

It was Rejik.

His shirt was torn to bits, his arms and legs were bloody, and he was quite obviously furious. He easily pinned her to the ground. "Now I get to teach you a lesson." Her heart thumped as she saw his hand raise, clenching into a fist. She closed her eyes, but the strike never came.

"Now, I don't know what is going on here, but surely you don't have any reason to punch a little girl." Dawn opened her eyes to see where this new voice had come from. She saw a tall boy with shoulder length black hair and a trench coat effortlessly holding Rejik's hand back. To his side was a Gengar, a rather infamously mischievous ghost Pokémon. Rejik's face was as red as it could be as he looked at the boy. "Now, get off of the girl," the boy said, emphasizing his statement by twisting Rejik's wrist until it almost broke. Rejik was quick to obey. He jumped to the side, but rather than keep running, he reached for something on his belt. "That isn't a good idea," the boy said. "Shut up!" Rejik bellowed as he threw the revealed pokeball. The pokeball opened, summoning an Arbok, which uncoiled itself and unfurled its hood as threateningly as possible. The boy sighed. "Now Arbok, make them pay for embarrassing Team Rocket!" The snake leapt toward the pair with a scream. The boy didn't say anything. He simply walked over to Dawn. "Are you okay?" "Aren't you going to help Gengar," she asked, but soon saw that he didn't need to.

Gengar simply stepped aside, allowing the Arbok to run headlong into the nearest tree. Gengar grew a wicked grin and he lifted his small hand. Dark energy formed into a ball in front of it. The grin grew even wider as it leapt forward, firing the ball of shadow directly into the Arbok's head. The snake was blasted through the tree and into the next tree, immediately falling unconscious.

"Oh I think he'll be ok," said the boy, turning back to her, "but that leaves my question unanswered. Are you ok?" Rejik gasped in disbelief, returning his Pokémon to its pokeball, and running for his life, swearing. Dawn was about to tell the boy that she was fine when a wave of pain shot through her leg. "I guess not. Well there is a small town ahead that can fix you up." He lifted her into a piggyback position on his back and began walking along the road. "Gengar, can you grab the suitcase?" The Pokémon shouted the affirmative in its own language, grabbing a slender brown case from the road and running to his side.

She was about to ask him any number of questions when he offered her a small flask. "Drink it," he said, "it will make the pain go away." She didn't argue, after all, he had just saved her life. She drank the bitter liquid and coughed. She soon felt warmth coarse through her, inviting her to sleep. "You drugged me." She halfheartedly accused. "Yes, and unless you want to lose that leg to infection, you won't argue about it." She thought about it for a minute, which was hard as she was getting increasingly tired, then nodded and fell asleep.


	2. A Truly Odd Pair

Johanna, Dawn's mother, finished her dishes rather quickly. She turned to walk out of the house, stopping to stare at an old picture of her daughter. She was ten years old already. Time had really flown. She would miss her when she left. She sighed, walked out the door, and called for Dawn. No one answered her. She called again, insisting that they would be late if she didn't hurry. Again no one answered her. Now she was worried. She had expected Dawn to be clawing at the door in her eagerness to get a pokemon. She walked the town, asking for her daughter, but no one had seen her. She started to get angry. Dawn had probably gone to professor Rowan's without her. She decided to call the professor. The phone rang for only a few seconds before being picked up. "Hello?" came a deep voice from the other end of the line. "Professor Rowan?" she asked. "Johanna? I didn't expect you to call. Is Dawn not coming today?" That answered all of her questions. "Haven't you seen her?" she asked, her voice shaking with fear. "No. Is she missing?" She started to break down. Her daughter was gone. She could be anywhere, injured by some wild pokemon, feebly calling for help. "Y-yes." "I'm sure she's fine Johanna," Rowan started to sooth while telling his assistants to call every pokemon center and hospital to put on lookout for her, "your daughter's rather tough. We'll find her." She thanked the professor for his time and hung up. Then she sat, and began to cry.

Rowan hung up the phone and rubbed his forehead. All of his assistants came back with the negative. No one had seen her, but they were now all on the lookout. Even if they found her, he didn't think that she deserved a pokemon at this point. He looked down at his desk in frustration, and froze, the realization of one more possibility popping into his mind. She could've been kidnapped by Team Rocket or one of its branches. If this was the case, then it would make perfect sense why she wouldn't have shown up anywhere. Now he just had to make one call. He picked up the phone and dialed the number.

In a small village under a mountain, a cell phone rang. A boy with shoulder length black hair and a trench coat answered it.

"Hello?"

"Cain? This is Rowan."

"I told you that your delivery would arrive in a few days, please stop pestering me about it."

"This isn't about that Cain," Rowan said, frustrated with Cain's sense of humor.

"Then what is it about?" "A girl that was supposed get her first pokemon from me went missing and I think that she may have been kidnapped. Her name is Dawn."

"She's with me."

Rowan was surprised, to say the least.

"Are you sure?"

"If she is wearing a short pink skirt, a white hat and has long blue hair then, yes, I am sure."

It was a perfect description.

"How did you find her?"

Cain related their meeting to him. "Amazing luck that girl has. Can you get her back to me?" "It'll take a few days, but yes I can."

"A few days? Can't you just hike back up the ravine?"

"No, a loose rock cut through a bit of the muscle in her leg on her way down it, and it's too steep for me to carry her. We are going to have to go around, otherwise I would."

It was sound reason.

"Fine, just keep her safe."

"Will do." They both hung up.

Just about then, Dawn was waking up. Her leg ached, but not as painfully as when she had cut it. Save for her leg, she was rather comfortable. She couldn't remember why her leg hurt, but she had probably just slept on it weird. She started to open her eyes, having just remembered that she would get a Pokémon from professor Rowan today, with a lot of excitement. However, when she opened her eyes, she wasn't in her room. Nor was she in her house. The house she was in contained only one room, which was rather under furnished, with only the minimal accessories required to survive. The floors and walls were completely unpainted, and there were no windows. She stared in amazement for a few moments, then heard the door open. She turned to see a boy dressed in black enter the house.

In an instant, everything came back to her.

"Y-you're!" she started, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand. She struggled as best she could when he reached for her covers. He gave her an odd look, chuckled, and said, "You _are_ aware that you aren't naked?" She looked down, confirming his statement, the blushed profusely. He chuckled again and lifted the sheets.

She gasped when she saw the cut that drew the length of her left leg. The boy Looked up at her for a moment, and, realizing that her gasp came only from surprise and not pain, returned to his work. He massaged the muscle, making her cringe as a bit of pain shot up her leg.

"Hmm… It's as I thought then."

She looked up at him, obviously scared, thinking that she might lose her leg. Just as tears started to well up in her eyes, he chuckled, then fully laughed. She looked at him incredulously.

"Well you're not going to lose it." He said through his chuckles. "All I meant was that we are going to have to go the long way. Don't be so worried."

She looked down sheepishly, then realized what he had said.

"Long way? To where?" she asked shakily.

He looked at her for a moment. His eyes pierced through her, leaving her feeling very exposed, as if he could read her mind. It was during this pause that she got a good look at his features. His chin was strong, with stubble growing. His hair was black and cascaded to his shoulders, all of it combed back. His eyes were black. The feature that caught her attention most, however, was his scar. It started just above his left eyebrow and cut its way across his eye, ending just underneath the cheekbone. He had been lucky, as his left eye remained intact and functioning. Her attention was drawn back to the conversation when he started to talk again.

"Home."

"My home?" He nodded.

"But where are we?" she asked, her voice starting to shake as thoughts of home flooded her mind. She was very homesick.

"How much do you remember of what happened?" She looked up at him. His eyes were serious. She told him everything. At the end of her story he gave a short nod and rose. "We are in a small village that I use as a rest stop in most of my journeys. You won't find it on any map. The villagers call the place H'skala."

She just looked at him, very confused. After a minute he motioned for her to stand. She started to, but when she put weight on her left leg, she fell back onto the bed in pain. He looked around for a minute and returned with a crutch that he pulled out of the abandoned closet of the house. She accepted it thankfully and stood. He led her slowly out of the room. She had to cover her eyes for a minute because the sun was so bright. When her eyes adjusted she saw that H'skala was situated in a valley basin in the dead middle of a range of mountains. The houses were much the same as the one she had just been occupying. The people were all working in a small patch of fields almost beyond her sight. Still, from her vantage point she could see that they weren't working alone. They were joined by various pokemon.

"Well stop staring and get moving. We need to be in the mountains by night."

This was a different voice from behind her, incredibly cold and sarcastic. When she turned though, she only saw the boy's Gengar. She gave it an odd look, thinking that it had talked, but that was ridiculous.

"Take a picture, why don't-cha?" the Gengar said, his statement dripping with sarcasm. Dawn jumped backwards in shock, causing her leg to seize up again.

"I-it can talk!"

The Gengar looked up to the boy, who was grinning very widely. "Well she is definitely a smart one, isn't she?" That caused them both to laugh very hard. Dawn looked at both of them incredulously.

"H-hey! It's not funny!" she stammered at them, embarrassed, her face quickly taking on a deep shade of red.

The laughter died down after a few minutes. The Gengar gave her a quizzical look, as she clutched her knees to her chest, her eyes starting to tear up again. He gave an overly exaggerated sigh when she started to sniffle.

"What's wrong?" he asked mid sigh. She said something, but it was muffled by her knees. He managed to catch words like miss, home, and meanie though. He sighed again and gave the boy a nervous look, but he was whistling and purposely looking at anything but Gengar. "Asshole." Gengar whispered, to which the boy just grinned, still not looking at him. He knew that Gengar was no good at the comforting game, and sometimes he needed to be knocked down a couple pegs. Besides, it was always hilarious to watch Gengar scramble for miracles. Gengar walked over to the sniffling girl and tried his best, really, to assume a comforting demeanor, earning him a quick snort from the boy. Gengar glared at him, then tried again. Finally he just gave up on it all together.

"Listen, uh, girl," he started, his tone hard, "if you want to get home, then you're going to have to get off of your ass and get moving."

Dawn looked up at him, tears in her eyes. She couldn't believe that he was so mean. Then he put his small purple hand on her shoulder. Somehow, even coming from him, it was comforting.

"Now let's get you home."

Somehow that did it. She nodded and swept the tears off of her cheek. Gengar handed her the crutch, which she took gratefully, still unable to stand without it. Then they heard the clapping.

"Bravo!" the boy sang in a mocking tone, "What a wonderful performance Gengar! Who knew you had it in you!"

Gengar glared at him again and stomped ahead of him, causing the boy to laugh even harder. Dawn stared after Gengar, worried at how his trainer was mocking him. When she asked the boy about it, he sighed.

"Oh, he'll get over it, and probably hand me back the same treatment tenfold."

Dawn didn't even try to understand what he was talking about.

"But he really did try, and I'm proud of that," he continued, picking up a slender brown case from the ground, "But he is right, we'd best get moving and just hope he isn't still angry with me at dinner."

He started to walk after Gengar, but Dawn stopped him. He raised his eyebrow at her when her hand wrapped itself around his wrist, but it was in question, not anger.

"Um…" she started, incredibly nervous with herself.

"Just say it, I won't hurt you." He told her calmly.

She gathered herself, not really knowing herself why she was so nervous, after all, it was a simple question.

"I'd like to thank you, but I don't even know your name."

Her gaze immediately went to her feet. She was still unsure why she was so uneasy around him. She decided that it was probably because of how scared she was. She was incredibly far from home, had been attacked, and was in the company of a stranger who'd saved her life and a talking pokemon. Yeah, it was probably that. That, and the fact that his gaze made her feel very exposed, as if she was standing naked in the middle of a bustling city.

He held his hand out to her after a second. She shook it in a traditional greeting.

"My name is Cain, and you have no need to thank me."

She smiled for what felt like the first time in a long time.

"Mine is Dawn."

"Get moving will you!" came Gengar's voice from a good distance away.

"Oh shut up you old coot!" Cain shouted back while imitating an old man's wheezy voice.

"Well if I'm an old coot then you should be dead!" bellowed Gengar in the same wheezing voice.

They started to walk towards Gengar, who was squatting on a fence next to the game trail that wound up the closest mountain. The two started to argue like two very old men as they started their climb. Every now and then a truly ridiculous statement would get thrown out, and Dawn would try to hide her giggles. Little did she know that neither would care if she laughed at them, as the whole thing was entirely for her benefit. They took note of the fact that she was relaxing from hidden laughter, as Cain had told Gengar would happen. _"The more she relaxes, the quicker her leg will heal"_ He had told Gengar, and apparently it was working.

They set up camp that night in a small clearing. While the stew that was to be their dinner was simmering, the two seemingly spontaneously put on a shadow puppet show, which ultimately broke down when they made two of the puppets fight. They were surprisingly good at it. She was busy clutching her sides the whole time as she could no longer hide her laughter. It hurt too much.

After they ate, Cain changed the bandages on her leg, while Gengar unpacked the single bed, which they gave to her. When she asked them where they would sleep, they simply smiled. She got her answer soon enough. Gengar climbed up a flat rock and fell asleep instantaneously. Cain scrambled up a tree to a point where three limbs conjoined to form a kind of seat. He didn't fall asleep as Gengar had. Instead he pulled a panpipe out of his pocket and began to play a soft tune, almost like a lullaby. Even if it wasn't a lullaby, it certainly worked like one, as Dawn soon grew very tired. One last thought that passed through her head before sleep overtook her. She had to be traveling with the absolute oddest pair of people it was possible to meet.


End file.
